


I can't walk

by lopingloup



Series: Whumptober 2018 [27]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Blood and Gore, Broken Bones, Fainting, Gen, Gore, Hunter Stiles Stilinski, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt Derek, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Look we're going for every trauma available okay, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Poisoning, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Trapped, Werewolf Derek, Whump, Wolfsbane Poisoning, antidote, bear trap, both are only briefly mentioned, it gets pretty descriptive with the gore peeps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:44:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lopingloup/pseuds/lopingloup
Summary: Whilst his dad and the Argents are away hunting a werewolf, Stiles is left alone in the house. When one of their perimeter wards is breached by an imposter, he goes to investigate...aka: an angsty, gory, whump-fest featuring a hurt Derek and an anxious yet BAMF!Stiles ^-^





	I can't walk

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo! Back again, finally! I will finish this damn whumptober thing, even if it takes me until October 2019 whoopsie. This is gory and there are some possible triggers in there, so please do thoroughly check the tags before diving in! Hope you enjoy this angsty mess :D 
> 
> Kudos always to the amazing Imperial_Dragon for betaing like a champ - a thousand thank yous to you <3 <3

Stiles was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the communal house’s living room, rolling a small, sharp-edged quartz stone between his fingers. An array of small stones of various sizes and colours lay before him. Deaton had told Stiles the names of each, and Stiles was supposed to be experimenting with them, feeling out which stone his magic might have some affinity with. So far he’d gotten nowhere, partly because he’d been struggling to concentrate with the house so silent. His dad, Chris, Allison and Kate were all out alongside a cohort of other hunters, tailing some rabid, lone alpha wolf that was causing trouble about two hours away. And Stiles had been left behind, as usual.

Unable to keep still, Stiles got to his feet and flipped the pale pink quartz between his fingers as he stared out of the front windows. It was fully dark outside and the group should have been back by now. Stiles’s magic fizzled inside him, thrumming alongside his anxiety in a way that was really _not_ helpful. Stiles didn’t want to radio in to the team yet, because they’d probably just been delayed, but he couldn’t concentrate at the best of time and their absence wasn’t helping. He was itching for a coffee but he knew it would only worsen his already twitching nerves so he tucked the quartz into his pocket and made himself tea instead. He stared at the dark window with , the window reflecting his pale, worried face back at him. He dropped his hand from the mug after a moment, glancing down at his pink, slightly burnt palm. The pain had distracted him briefly, but it was a bad habit and he knew he needed to stop.

Stiles turned away, rubbing a hand through his short hair. His heart was going too fast, his stomach was tight with nerves and he forced himself to himself draw in two long, steadying breaths. Nothing on TV held his interest but he lay listlessly in front of it anyway, trying and failing not to imagine all the ways the hunt could have gone wrong. How he could be an orphan and not even know it.

Sometime after his mug had turned stone cold in his hands, Stiles twitched to full awareness, coming up to fully seated. It was hard for him to explain to the others how he could feel it, but between a buzzing across his skin and a feeling in his ears like the air pressure had changed, Stiles knew at least one of his wards had just been crossed. They weren’t like the house wards, which actively repelled strangers, but were merely alarm wards at the perimeter.

Stiles’s stomach rolled nervously and he clambered to his feet, hurrying across the room to turn the lights out, before wondering whether he should have done that. He was half-way over the dark room to pick up the radio on the counter, intending to let his dad know that there had been a perimeter breach, before he stopped. What if the ward had just tripped because a large animal had crossed it? Sure, the ward was supposed to only warn Stiles about people, and shifted werewolves, but Stiles hadn’t had Deaton’s help with the perimeter and what if he’d gotten them wrong somehow? What if the group were in the middle of the hunt and he called them back over a goddamn racoon or something? What if they came back because of him and the wolf they’d been hunting killed someone? That would be _his_ fault. Stiles’s magic felt like it was churning spasmodically inside him, desperate to act, to _do_ something.

Stiles smacked the side of his head violently and then slammed his palms down on the cold counter as he forced himself to take several slow breaths, trying to do what Carmen, his therapist, had told him to when his head started being a catastrophising, spiralling mess. Just because his worries weren’t exactly unfounded didn’t mean they were _useful_. He needed to focus and make clear decisions.

He got his breathing under control and then twitched as a second perimeter ward was tripped, before freezing. Whatever, _whoever_, it was out there was getting closer to the house and while Stiles might have fucked up one ward, it was unlikely he’d had fucked up both of them, right?

Leaving the house lights off, Stiles fumbled over to the kitchen to grab a flashlight from under the sink but didn’t turn it on yet. He picked up the radio and clipped it securely to his belt, resolving to take a look before he called in the cavalry.

Deaton didn’t want Stiles going on hunts – he said it was Stiles’s duty to protect the home base so that the group always had somewhere safe to return to – and Stiles’s dad wasn’t keen on it either, since Stiles was still seventeen. Stiles was pretty certain that he could be a thirty-year-old, six-foot Marine with an AK47 and his dad still wouldn’t want Stiles out in the field, but whatever. Despite that, Stiles wasn’t helpless. His magic was powerful and Stiles knew it, even as he had a feeling that no-one but Deaton really understood how much power Stiles had bound up inside him. It made his anxiety worse, the difficulty he had keeping his magic tamped down when it was riled up by his own nerves and desperately hunting for an outlet. It felt like an attack from both sides, sometimes, his panicky brain alongside his thrashing magic, with both of them threatening to overwhelm him.

Taking another slow breath, Stiles double- and then triple-checked that he had keys so he wouldn’t lock himself out, before he eased the back door open, flashlight in hand, and crept into the chill of the night. His eyes were already as adjusted as they’d get and Stiles, his heartbeat painfully loud in his ears, scanned the yard and tried to keep himself steady. He couldn’t help thinking how much better a werewolf’s eyesight and hearing and smell were, how there could be a wolf in _that_ shadow, or behind _that_ tree, or-

Stiles grabbed the back-door handle and scrambled back inside the house, his chest heaving as he sucked in frantic breaths. Panicking and shaking, he tried to focus on his surroundings, to count backwards, to slow his breathing: all things he was supposed to do. It was an uphill battle against both his mind and his sparking magic but he did it, gritting his teeth in frustration.

“I can do this,” he said aloud. He touched the radio at his hip and tightened his clammy fingers around the flashlight before he yanked the back door back open and dragged himself outside again. He closed the door behind him quietly, keeping his breathing even through force of will, and then paused to check the house wards as a force of habit, just like he did every time he entered and left the house. The wards let him through almost without him noticing, but they would repel anyone who wasn’t pack; any strangers had to be allowed inside by Stiles personally, and could be forced out again at a moment’s notice. Deaton had walked him step by step through setting these up, so that Stiles had a confidence in them that he didn’t in the passive outer wards. Regardless, the house wards felt strong and taut with energy and he could feel nothing out of place with them; they hadn’t activated recently and there was certainly no breach.

Feeling a little more reassured, Stiles moved carefully out into the yard beyond the house wards, wondering yet again if this was a terrible idea. But he wasn’t useless and his magic vibrated impatiently inside him, as if eager to remind him of that fact. The night was quiet but not unnaturally so, barring the occasional distant bird call and the soft, papery noise of the wind ruffling the trees and overturning the leaf litter.

Between one second of silence and the next, a deafening _SNAP_ like a gun going off resounded through the quiet. Stiles threw himself to the ground on pure instinct and his chin hit the hard-packed earth, his teeth clacking together painfully on impact. Heart thudding madly, Stiles didn’t have time to drag a breath in before there was a scream of agony off to his left, sharp and sudden and tailing off seconds later. The scream animal and Stiles felt the shift under his skin, the pop in his ears of the change in air pressure, that told him that one of the werewolf traps he’d put in had been set off. He’d thought the risk of a human getting accidentally caught in them too high, despite his precautions, but Allison’s grandfather, Gerard, had insisted on them when he’d still been alive and active within the group, and Stiles hadn’t thought to dissemble them since Gerard died.

Panic tore through Stiles and he jerked to his feet, his magic roiling, demanding to be let out. A _werewolf_ would heal from that but a human could be injured for life, if not killed. It was only supposed to trigger for a werewolf with violence on their mind, but he’d never done anything like it when he’d made it, and Stiles cringed to remember how inexperienced he’d still been back then. But what if it was a werewolf? What if Stiles hadn’t gotten the wolfsbane dosage right and the wolf was pulling themselves out now, furious and healing already and bent on killing whoever they found?

Stiles found himself staggering towards the trap he’d felt trip, unable to stop himself. His magic would protect him, it _would_, and he had to know what, or who, he’d captured. He reached for the radio, before remembering that he’d connected the traps to the alarm systems – just a simple, red lightbulb and a loud, electric bell he’d attached to the car batteries – so that if the traps were tripped, the group would be alerted. Deaton hadn’t really explored how magic could interact usefully with electricity, but Stiles had been experimenting with it and he’d found that his magic jumped willingly into electrical objects, seeking it The group would already know, then, that the trap had been activated with the bell and light going off in their car, and the best Stiles could do was gather more information about what they were dealing with. So he left the radio alone and moved unsteadily towards the trap.

He forced himself forwards, slowing when he heard

“Fucking hunter bastard _fuck_-”

Stiles barely registered that the person was launching themselves at Stiles before Stiles’s hand was out and his magic was leaping from his fingers with that feeling of reckless, hungry eagerness that he both hated and longed for, that rush he was addicted to, even as he frequently loathed it.

“**Stop**!” he yelled and the figure- _stopped_, going immediately and rigidly motionless like they’d been frozen.

“Oh fuck,” a low, strained and distinctly male voice groaned quietly between harsh breaths. Stiles could feel the magic he’d instinctively cast wrapped tight around the man and after he’d pulled in a lungful of air, he concentrated on twisting the magic so that-

“**You can move**,” Stiles said, layering his words with magic, “**but you can’t harm me**.”

The guy on the ground went limp with a groan of gut-deep pain. Stiles was distracted with trying to contain his magic and keep himself focused, trying to figure out what the _hell_ he was supposed to do next. Gerard hadn’t talked to him about what to do if the trap actually _did_ catch a goddamn werewolf, and Stiles was pretty certain the man on the ground wasn’t human, not least because he’d called Stiles a hunter and tried to attack him.

Warily, keeping a meter or so between himself and the wolf despite the magic he’d put in place, Stiles crouched down and flicked on the flashlight he’d somehow held onto. He pointed it straight at the guy when he turned it on, and then they both jumped, the wolf at the sudden, and probably painful, explosion of light, and Stiles at the wolf’s sharp snarl.

“Sorry, sorry,” Stiles said and quickly lowered the beam from the wolf’s face. He stared, though, as the wolf’s eyes flashed blue. “You’re a murderer,” Stiles choked.

“_I’m_ a murderer?” the wolf snarled, his face young and angular. His spiky, black hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and his face was deathly pale. “You’re the fucking hunter-” the man broke off and narrowed his eyes, “or you’re something, I don’t-” His face twisted in pain and he turned away from Stiles, his jaw rigid, his breathing rough. “Jesus I fucking hate wolfsbane,” he spat between his teeth.

Stiles swallowed, feeling sick at the tang of blood in the air, the musty scent of the wolfsbane triggering his gag reflex, even though the stuff didn’t hurt him like it seared wolves. Stiles hesitantly flicked the flashlight’s beam down the wolf’s strong body to the metallic gleam of the trap, which was wet with blood and held, clamped between its vicious teeth, the wolf’s obviously broken leg.

“Shit,” Stiles breathed, before he twisted away and pressed his fingers to his mouth, trying not to throw up, trying not to feel horrifically guilty for inflicting such pain on someone. Trying to be strong like the true hunter he’d always tried to be.

“Squeamish?” the wolf said, his tone half-way between mocking and desperate, and laced with pain.

“No,” Stiles snapped, twisting back to face the wolf. “Of course not, I just- why are your eyes blue?” he demanded.

The wolf stared at him. He was mostly human-looking, but his teeth were too long and there was the suggestion of a wolf’s bone structure visible in his face. Even so, he was animalistically beautiful, and Stiles wished he couldn’t see it. The wolf’s eyes were dark now, but Stiles couldn’t get that flash of electric blue out of his mind. Murderer blue, his dad had once called it, because only wolves that killed innocents had them.

The wolf’s bristled jaw clenched and Stiles glared at him. “Fuck you,” the wolf said softly, after a long few seconds. “You don’t know me.”

“I know exactly what that blue means,” Stiles said, flinging his hand out, the overflowing magic jumping from his fingers. Stiles saw the wolf’s eyes widen at the static sparks between Stiles’s fingers and Stiles grimaced and tamped down his power. “That- that trap I set up only gets werewolves who’re planning violence,” he insisted, trying to convince himself, “and your eyes are blue. You just tried to attack me; I think I’ve got a pretty good idea who you are!”

Stiles and the wolf stared at each other, both of them breathing hard but the wolf was sweating and trembling, the dark veins of wolfsbane just beginning to thread their way under his skin.

“You can’t call me a murderer, when you- you-” Stiles waved his hand at the wolf, who glared back at him. Stiles hated that he knew the wolf was a killer and .

“Not that you have any right _at all_ to know, hunter” the wolf snarled slowly, “but it was a mercy killing.”

Stiles stilled his fidgeting to scour the wolf’s face for a lie. His magic was thrumming through his fingers and Stiles remembered Deaton guiding him through truth casts not so long ago. Before he could think better of it, he called his magic closer to his skin as he said, “Say that again and **don’t lie to me**.”

The wolf’s brow furrowed deeply but he met Stiles’s hard gaze and, to Stiles’s shock, said, “It was a mercy killing. She was dying.” Then his voice cracked. “I loved her, I-” The wolf choked abruptly and jerked his head backwards as Stiles hurriedly released the magic. “The hell was that?” the wolf said, his eyes wide and lips parted in shock. “Did you- was that- _what the fuck did you do_?”

“You really didn’t want to kill her,” Stiles said, frowning down at the wolf. He pushed his magic forwards again, determined to untangle this mess. “**What do you want? Why are you here**?” he demanded.

The wolf blinked and seemed to fight the cast for a moment, his face going tight, but he wasn’t strong enough and the words spilled through his clenched teeth. “I was meant to do recon. To figure if hunters lived here, like we thought-”

“**And then**?” Stiles pressed.

“And then leave,” the wolf snapped. “If I found evidence of hunters, we were gonna get the fuck out of here. Especially if it turned out to be fucking Argents, no-one-” the wolf broke off as soon as Stiles let the magic go and he gasped breathlessly, looking sick and shocked. Stiles felt no better.

“You didn’t- you weren’t planning to kill me- us?” he managed.

“What _are_ you?” the wolf coughed out. The wolfsbane was showing up darkly in the veins in his neck and he seemed to be struggling to breathe through the pain and the wolfsbane. “Don’t do that again, don’t make me-”

“I won’t,” Stiles said quickly, his hands out. He felt ill and he couldn’t look at the wolf’s broken leg. “I’m sorry, I just had to know, I had to check, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this, the trap was only supposed to get wolves who were gonna-”

“Yeah well I think you fucked it up,” the wolf spat.

“-hurt people,” Stiles finished weakly.

The wolf scanned Stiles’s face as he panted. “Are you seriously actually sorry?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, suddenly struggling for air again. _Another panic attack, goddammit_. “Oh god, shit, I didn’t mean- I swear-”

“Jesus, hey, calm down!” the wolf said, staring at Stiles.

Stiles couldn’t calm down; he couldn’t _breathe_. He tried to slow his breathing but he couldn’t fucking breathe, couldn’t focus to count, couldn’t do anything fuck _fuck_-

“Hunter!” the wolf snapped, making Stiles jump. “Come on, fuck, will you just relax dammit?”

A large, rough hand grabbed Stiles’s arm and Stiles startled before going lax. “I’m sorry,” Stiles choked out. “I’ve never killed anyone, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I-”

“It’s alright!” the wolf said sharply and Stiles turned to stare at him.

“How the fuck is it alright?” he all but yelled, before lowering his voice. “Your leg is broken and you’re-”

“I’m a werewolf,” the wolf said impatiently. “I’ll survive the broken leg, okay? But you had to use a fuckton of ‘bane, didn’t you?” he huffed out an angry growl. The beam of Stiles’s flashlight was trembling where it was pointed at the ground just to the right of the wolf’s pain-tight face. “Look, just get me out of this thing and then I might not die.”

Stiles scrubbed tears from his face and realised that sometime during the wolf talking, his breathing had gone back to really-fast instead of fuck-I-can’t-breathe. “The wolfsbane shouldn’t be lethal,” he said. “I made the dosage-”

“You don’t know jack-shit about dosages,” the wolf said. “This much could’ve kill me even without the blood loss.”

“But I almost _halved_ the lethal dose in the hunter’s guidebook,” Stiles protested. “How can that still be lethal? It still had to be strong enough-”

“Look,” the wolf snarled, exposing an animal’s teeth, froth at the edges of his mouth, “I’ll happily explain wolfsbane to you later but right now I don’t have much fucking time. Decide what side you’re on, hunter, and do it _now_.”

Stiles’s breath caught and he swallowed compulsively. “I’m not-” He blinked. “I’m not on anyone’s side, okay? I just- want to protect humans. There’s a code, we don’t-”

“Fuck the code. Are you helping me get this thing off or not?”

Stiles was silent for only a second before he jerked a nod and, shoving the flashlight under one arm, he dropped down beside the trap locked around the wolf’s leg, just under his knee. Stiles grimaced at the gore and held his breath as he steeled himself.

“You ready?” he said unevenly. “’Cus I’m not sure-”

“_Get it off_.”

“Alright,” Stiles muttered. He shoved his fingers in-between the metal spikes, which were only a couple of inches apart and Stiles’s stomach rolled when he realised they were only held open by the wolf’s leg _bone_, the teeth having sliced straight through the wolf’s muscle and flesh. But he got himself under control and tried to drag the metal jaws open, before pushing at the magic that was already tied to the trap. He could tell that it was his own magic, but it felt stale and he struggled for a moment to shape it, to make it do what he wanted.

“**Open**,” he spat at it angrily and the magic finally stirred, the trap grinding open as Stiles pulled at the rusted springs, shoving at it. The wolf howled at the rough drag of the opening trap, before falling into agonised, whimpering whining. Stiles nudged at the magic until he was confident the trap wouldn’t snap shut again.

“Are you okay?” Stiles said anxiously, not daring to look closely at the wolf’s mangled leg. “Can you move it?” Stiles flicked the flashlight up when the wolf didn’t respond and found the wolf’s face slack and ghastly pale; unconscious. Or dead.

“Shit,” Stiles whispered and crawled over to the wolf’s head. “Talk to me, dude, please, shit-” he begged as he pressed his shaking fingers under the wolf’s sharp jaw. There was a strong pulse there and Stiles folded over in utter relief, dropping his forehead to the wolf’s broad chest briefly before he sat up again and patted the wolf’s cool cheek. “Hang in there,” he begged. Wolfsbane had crawled up the wolf’s neck and down his arms to show on his hands and Stiles clenched his hands at the sight. _What have I done?_

The wolf stirred a distressingly long minute or so later and Stiles exhaled heavily when the wolf’s eyes flickered open. “Oh thank god,” he muttered. “Wake up, come on.”

The wolf clenched his jaw, going rigid as he came fully to awareness and the pain seemed to hit him all at once, a low growl emanating from deep within his chest. His eyes flashed bright blue at Stiles for just a second, before his head fell back and he just looked exhausted and half-dead.

Stiles drew a breath and then wrapped his arms around the wolf’s chest and

“I can’t do this alone,” he begged as he struggled to even get the wolf up to seated. “God you’re heavy, come on, help me out here. Nice and warm in the house. Lots of bandages.”

“_I can’t walk_,” the wolf said and Stiles winced.

“I’m sorry, dude, but you have to.”

The wolf grunted but he reached up to clutch Stiles’s shoulders and _keened_ in agony as they managed to get the wolf to his feet, the wolf’s broken leg hanging at a horrible angle, his foot dragging on the ground.

“Okay okay,” Stiles muttered. “You’re _so_ fucking heavy, come on, we can do this, you’ll be alright, you have to be okay, okay?”

The wolf was tall, built like a brick shithouse and heavy as hell and when he leaned all his weight on Stiles, Stiles struggled to stay upright, but they managed to struggle the hundred meters or so towards the house, the wolf panting in desperate rasps, whining deep in his throat in suppressed agony at the jolting of his broken leg every time he used Stiles as a crutch to drag himself forwards another step.

“How. Much. Further.”

“Not far,” Stiles said breathlessly, wincing at the pain in his back and shoulders each time the wolf leant on him, but his respect for the wolf’s pain tolerance was huge. Stiles knew that if he’d broken _his_ leg, he’d be dead to the world, not conscious, upright and goddamn walking. “We’re almost there, hang on, okay.”

They finally got there and the wolf sagged weakly against the wall of the house whilst Stiles fumbled to get the door unlocked and flicked the inside light on. Then he wrapped his arm back around the wolf, any inhibitions about being close to the wolf completely gone, and began to drag him inside, before he stopped short.

“Oh the wards, I- er- **I allow you inside the house**.” Stiles felt the change of air pressure in his ears, the wolf’s head heavy on his shoulder, and they staggered inside as Stiles pleaded, “Don’t pass out on me now.”

Exhausted as he clearly was, the wolf still eyed the house with obvious wariness. “Are there. Other. Hunters?” he rasped out. Stiles didn’t immediately answer, unsure that he wanted to admit that he was alone, but when the wolf started to resist, he relented.

“No,” he said. “It’s just me.” The wolf sagged a little and Stiles got them over to the couch where they both collapsed.

“You got a name?” Stiles asked breathlessly.

The wolf was pale as paper under the overhead lights and blood dripped from his mangled leg, but he still turned his suspicious gaze on Stiles.

“You first, hunter.”

Stiles huffed. “Sure. I’m Stiles, Stiles Stilinski.” The wolf turned to frown at him, scanning Stiles’s face. He didn’t say anything and Stiles rolled his eyes and dragged himself to his feet. “I’ll get bandages, Sourwolf, just- stay there I guess.”

He winced under the wolf’s glare and headed off quickly to grab the extensive first aid kit, which was the size of paramedic’s bag these days, for all the injuries their group came home with. Deaton had taught Stiles some of the basics and Stiles had lost count of how many times he’d stitched up various gashes and cuts; he’d gotten good at it.

But a broken leg and wolfsbane overdosing was something completely different. Still, Deaton had diligently taught him about antidotes for wolfsbane, for humans, who could become sick if they ingested a lot of wolfsbane or were already ill, but also for wolves. Stiles hadn’t understood why Deaton was teaching him it at the time, but Stiles was deeply grateful for it now.

He dragged the first aid kit into the sitting room and dropped to his knees by the wolf’s feet as he searched for the small wooden box he needed, before he remembered that it wasn’t in there and he dashed out of the room and up to his room to dive through his wardrobe. He finally found the thing under his bed and hurried downstairs to drop back down beside the wolf.

He opened it up and flicked carefully through the glass vials of wolfsbane inside the case. He’d labelled the vials with the date of harvesting and what he’d used it for and it took him a moment but he found the vial containing the same wolfsbane strain he’d used on the trap.

“The fuck is that?” the wolf said tightly. Stiles glanced up.

“It’s an antidote. I need to burn it and then get it into your bloodstream.” Stiles glanced at the wolf’s leg wound but he didn’t think that would be fast enough. “I’ll inject it,” he decided.

“Fine,” the wolf growled, before adding. “I’m dying anyway.”

“Your faith is overwhelming,” Stiles said, but he didn’t blame the wolf. This whole predicament was Stiles’s fault. Having a task to focus on helped Stiles push down the panic and he focused on getting the wolfsbane into a dish and then found a lighter in the first aid kit – for sterilising needles.

The wolf’s nostrils twitched when the stopper came off the vial and he went tense. “That’s wolfsbane,” he said. “_Fuck_ no,” the wolf snarled, going rigid all over.

Stiles kept working, torching the wolfsbane. Burning it neutralised the active ingredient in it and what remained worked to bind up the active wolfbane, or so Deaton had hypothesised. He’d said he didn’t fully understand it, only that it worked.

“It’s the only-” Stiles started.

“_No_,” the wolf growled.

“You’re dying anyway,” Stiles snapped. “Why would I put more wolfsbane in you if I wanted you dead?” Stiles and then unwrapped a hypodermic needle with shaking hands.

“I don’t _know_,” the wolf said. “But I don’t know what the hell you are. Or what you can do-”

Stiles, holding the needle now full of the black liquid, met the wolf’s eyes. “You’re just going to have to trust me,” he said quietly.

“I don’t trust h-” the wolf spat, and tried to jerk away when Stiles lurched to his feet but he could barely move and Stiles grabbed the wolf’s jaw and jabbed the needle in his neck. He’d never have injected a human like that, but well, this guy wasn’t human. “Fuck!” the wolf barked out.

Stiles leaned warily back. “It should kick in quickly,” he said, watching the wolf, who glared murder at him.

“If this-”

“If it doesn’t work, you’re dead,” Stiles said flatly, feeling sick. Without anything left to do but wait, he numbly went to find the needle disposal bin in the back room before returning sluggishly to the kitchen.

He vaguely recognised that he was exhausted and needed to eat and drink something, even though he wanted to lay down and not get up for sixteen hours. So he washed his hands thoroughly and fumbled through making himself and the wolf a hot drink, grabbing some cookies his dad had made yesterday. Stiles had complained about the sugar and fat in them but his dad stubbornly said that since they were homemade, they didn’t count. Stiles gladly stuffed a sugary cookie in his mouth now, saliva flooding over his tongue almost painfully.

He brought the drinks over to where the wolf was slumped on the couch, blood puddling under his leg. Stiles glanced down at it and hurriedly put the drinks on the table and grabbed a pack of bandages from the first aid, furious with himself for not thinking of stopping the blood loss earlier – what would Deaton think?

“Don’t,” the wolf said, extending a hand when Stiles started to unwrap the bandage.

“What?” Stiles said. “But you’re losing-”

The wolf looked at Stiles with more clarity in his eyes than Stiles had seen in the last half-hour. “The ‘bane- or whatever you stuck me with seems to be working,” he said lowly. Though he was clearer-eyed, his voice was sluggish, like he was so exhausted he was struggling to form sentences. “The bandage won’t help now. My leg…will pull itself back into shape, soon.”

“God,” Stiles cringed at that horrific image and his appetite disappeared. “That’s disgusting, man, but okay. Good. You need some fluids, though, so drink this, will you?” The wolf glanced at the mug and sniffed it. “It’s just tea,” Stiles said impatiently. “Plenty of time to poison you when I was sticking you with a needle, remember?”

The wolf glared at him but he shakily took the tea. “Didn’t have much choice with the needle,” he muttered, but he gulped the tea down all the same and Stiles took the mug back.

“Fuck,” the wolf hissed a moment later, going rigid as a board, his jaw and face screwed up in pain.

“You okay?” Stiles said hesitantly, before there was an _awful_ grinding noise and Stiles turned away to dry retch in horror, his hand clamped over his mouth. But it was over in a second and when Stiles got himself together and turned back, the wolf’s lower leg looked more like a leg again, caked in blood though it was.

The wolf’s face was already looking slightly less like the colour of off-milk and with, Stiles presumed, the reduction in pain, the wolf’s eyes were falling shut where he lay limp against the couch. Stiles sat gingerly down on the edge of the seat and eyed the wolf.

“You never told me your name,” he said, not sure if the wolf was already asleep.

The wolf was silent for a long time before he cracked his eyes open. “Derek.”

“Derek,” Stiles repeated and then grinned exhaustedly. “Cool.”

Derek drifted in out of sleep for ten minutes or so as Stiles drank his cooling tea and munched on cookies, before getting up to dump the mugs in the sink. He was just drying his hands when he heard voices outside the door and looked up.

“Oh shit,” he muttered. He saw Derek sit up sharply on the couch with a wince and Stiles hurried towards him.

“Do they know I’m here?” Derek asked tightly. He looked like he wanted to get up but his glare at his blood-drenched leg suggested that it couldn’t hold him up yet, or at least that he couldn’t run on it.

“No,” Stiles said. “Look I won’t let them hurt you, okay? Just…don’t make any sudden moves, and don’t attack them for god’s sake.” Derek wrinkled his nose but nodded, his eyes fixed on the door.

Chris came in first, followed by Allison and Kate, and when Stiles didn’t immediately see his dad, his earlier fears of something happening to him returned for one, awful second, before his dad finally stepped in and Stiles’s shoulders sagged in relief.

“Hey champ,” Stiles’s dad said and smiled tiredly at Stiles. Stiles caught the second his dad spotted Derek, and the whole group froze. Stiles heard Derek’s grunt as he dragged himself to his feet behind Stiles and Stiles put his hands up to his dad.

“He’s not going to hurt us,” he said quickly. “He hasn’t broken the code, okay? So just don’t-”

Stiles was stood directly in front of Derek, which forced Kate to take a step sideways before she could take aim at Derek. It was that one step that gave Stiles the fraction of a second he needed as he threw his hand up with a sharp, “**Don’t**!”

Kate’s finger froze on the trigger. Stiles gritted his teeth as he tugged his unruly magic into what he wanted. “**You can’t hurt him**,” he addressed them all, before twisted to face Derek, “**and you can’t hurt them**, okay? _Okay_? No-one’s hurting anyone.” He dropped his shaking hand, his magic feeling worn with how much he’d used tonight. Kate’s face twisted as she tried, repeatedly, to bypass the magic and pull the trigger.

“Argents?” Derek croaked roughly from behind Stiles. “You live with the _Argents_?” Stiles belatedly remembered Derek mentioning the name earlier but he hadn’t thought it significant. Now, catching sight of the horror on Derek’s pain-tight face, Stiles’s stomach dropped in dread.

“Yeah,” he said wearily. “Yeah, but we’re just gonna chat calmly okay-”

But Derek wasn’t looking at him, hadn’t taken his eyes off Kate for even a second, even after she’d lowered the gun. “You bitch,” he hissed.

“Hey-” Stiles protested, frowning.

“There were _children_ in that house-” Derek growled.

“Do you really think I care?” Kate snapped back, before she blinked and seemed to remember where she was. Her lips pulled into a strained smile. “What the hell is this mutt doing in here, Stiles?” she said dangerously.

Stiles swallowed nervously as he glanced between them. Derek looked ready to tear Kate’s throat out and Stiles wasn’t sure he wanted to know how they knew each other.

“Stiles?” Stiles’s dad prompted with an edge to his voice and Stiles looked over at him.

“He- he got caught in one of those traps, you know the ones Gerard had me set up?” Stiles’s caught Derek’s slight flinch at the name and he sent an uncertain glance at the tense wolf. “My magic was off and he got caught, but he wasn’t supposed to, he-”

“But he was on our grounds? Was he alone?” Chris broke in, looking pissed.

“Yeah alone, but he was just checking us out, he didn’t mean any harm-”

“How can you-” Allison started as Kate rolled her eyes in derision.

Stiles’s temper flared briefly at their utter lack of faith in him. He wasn’t a stupid kid, okay? “I _know_,” he snapped. “Deaton taught me truth casts. Derek wasn’t lying.”

“Oh its _Derek_ now,” Kate sneered. “So we’re all _best friends_ are we? If you screwed up the traps, Stiles, then maybe you screwed up the truth magic bullshit as well, did that occur to you, you stupid boy?”

Doubt flickered through Stiles for just a moment, before he remembered Derek’s face when the truth about his blue eyes was dragged out of him and he knew with absolute certainty that Derek hadn’t lied.

“I’m sure,” Stiles said firmly. “I did those traps months ago. I-”

“Stiles,” Chris interrupted and Stiles looked at him. “We saw the alarms go off that the trap had been activated, but why didn’t you radio in? How the hell did the wolf- Derek get into the house, for that matter? Why isn’t he passed out on wolfsbane? You did put that on the traps, didn’t you?”

Stiles faltered under the barrage of questions. “I had to check,” he said, gesturing defensively. “I mean, what if it’d been a human? And Derek was _dying_, I fucke- sorry, _messed_ up the wolfsbane dosage. I had to get him back here. I couldn’t let him die. He’s innocent. He hasn’t broken the code or anything.” Stiles cast an imploring glance around and focused finally on his father, pleading with him. “We’re not murderers,” he said softly.

“But you let him through the wards,” Stiles’s dad said tightly. “He could have killed you-”

“No he couldn’t, dad,” Stiles snapped, before his dad’s chiding look made him get his temper back under wraps. “I’m not helpless, okay? I put magic on him. He couldn’t harm me, even if he hadn’t been practically comatose anyways.” He glared defiantly at all of them, daring them to argue with him, even though he was starting to crash hard, exhausted by the stress, and dragging Derek all the way up here. The repeated panic attacks earlier would have been enough to wipe him out entirely, even without all the other bullshit.

There was a brief, heavy silence where Stiles could hear Derek’s harsh, pained breathing behind him.

“How sure are you, Stiles?” Stiles’s dad asked, but his tone was gentle, not sneering as Kate’s had been. Stiles met his dad’s worried gaze.

“I’m certain,” he promised. His dad was silent for a second before he nodded once and turned to Chris.

“I trust my son,” he said and Stiles’s felt tears briefly well up in his eyes. “If Stiles says Derek hasn’t broken the code then I believe him.”

Kate snorted in disgust and Stiles turned sharply to eye her. “Have you seen his eyes?” she said, faux casually. She was leaning against the counter like she didn’t care, but there was a stiffness in her posture that belied her tension.

“Yes,” Stiles snapped. “He didn’t _want_ to do it.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Kate laughed, “you’re so gullible.”

“What?” Derek snapped suddenly, harsh enough that Stiles jumped. “Like_ I_ was gullible, Kate?” he snarled. Stiles had never seen or heard such hatred and he doubted himself briefly, because Derek looked every inch the killer. “Like I was a gullible sixteen-year-old,” Derek’s voice rose and then cracked, “and you tried to _murder_-”

“Please spare me-” Kate snapped, rolling her eyes.

“-_my entire pack, _my whole family.” Derek was shouting now, his fingers white from digging into the couch. “Tried to _burn them all alive_, you fucking psycho bitch-”

“Steady on there sweetheart,” Kate said, ice in her eyes.

Derek took a sharp step towards her and Stiles stepped quickly to grab him. “Don’t,” he said quietly. “The magic will hurt you if you try.”

Derek looked down at him, and it wasn’t hatred but a soul-deep pain in his eyes. That look hit Stiles hard. It was how Stiles had seen in the mirror after his mother had been killed.

“She raped me,” Derek said lowly, “and tried to burn my family alive, her and her heartless father-”

“Rape?” Kate said, and then laughed. It was jarring enough that even Chris sent his sister a disturbed look. “Honey, I don’t remember you complaining.”

Stiles could feel Derek’s heart going far too fast inside his chest where his hand was on Derek’s chest, holding him back, and he felt Derek flinch at Kate’s words.

“I was a teenager,” Derek breathed. “You manipulated me.”

“Bullshit, you lapped it up, baby.”

“Don’t call me that,” Derek snarled, rigid under Stiles’s hand.

“Stiles-” Stiles’s dad said warily, his gaze fixed nervously on Derek, but Stiles knew that Derek wouldn’t have hurt him, even without the magic in place.

Stiles looked up to meet Derek’s eyes, though it took Derek several seconds to even notice him with how he was staring at Kate.

“Sit down, Derek,” Stiles said gently, trying to show silently convey that he wouldn’t screw Derek over, that he wasn’t on anybody’s side except the side of the truth. Derek searched Stiles’s face for a long second before he twitched a stiff nod and sat down on the edge of the couch. He was strung tight with tension.

“Good puppy,” Kate said.

“Kate!” Chris snapped and Allison shot her aunt a troubled look, looking like she was split between loyalty to her family and uncertainty. Stiles nodded to her. Then he took a breath and turned to Kate, gathering his magic to the surface. Usually he would never perform magic on someone without permission; Deaton had lectured him several times on the immorality of forced magic, but Stiles had to know. If his suspicions were proved wrong then he’d apologise sincerely afterwards.

Sparks jumped between his fingers and then Stiles focused solely on Kate, whose eyes widened in brief alarm. Stiles wasn’t proud of the shot of gratification he felt that she finally respected his power.

“**Is Derek telling the truth, Kate**?” he demanded.

“Stiles, you-” Stiles’s dad started.

“Stop this!” Chris barked. “Kate’s loyal, she’s-”

Kate fought the magic and she fought it hard, so that Stiles found himself sweating to hold the truth cast in place, especially after all the magic he’d already expended.

Then Kate’s face twisted and she spat out, “_Yes_.” The room went silent as everyone stared at her. Derek’s mouth was a grim line where Stiles, leaning heavily on the couch.

“**All of it**?” Stiles pressed. “**The attempted murder, the manipulation, the- the**,” he glanced at Derek, “**sexual assault**?”

Kate laughed then, tight and high and utterly wrong. Stiles stared at her and couldn’t recognise the woman who made pancakes for him when he was down and made jokes and sang badly along with the radio.

“If you want to be dramatic, Stiles,” she said sneeringly, “then yeah. They’re _vermin_. Sure he’s hot, but he’s a killer. He’d gut you like a fish on a full moon.” She smiled sickeningly. “Not really boyfriend material, right?” Her expression was ugly, smug and cruel and patronising. She tipped forwards to narrow her eyes at Stiles. Stiles hadn’t let the magic drop yet and he could feel it still tugging the truth out of her. “It was Gerard’s idea,” she said, “but I had no problem with it. So what if there were pups in that godforsaken house?” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t give a shit about baby cockroaches when I put down the poison for _them_. It doesn’t damn well keep me up at night-”

“**Had they broken the code**?” Stiles snapped, feeling sick and oddly violated, that he’d been living with this woman, this murderer, and had no fucking idea what she was.

“No honey,” Kate said. She was sweating under the magic’s force and so was Stiles, his hands shaking. “But who cares? They would have done. I was saving human lives, isn’t that what counts, really?”

Stiles exhaustedly let the magic drop and staggered back a step, only for a warm hand to land on his shoulder and steady him, Derek’s hand. Stiles shook his head at Kate in disgust. “You don’t even care,” he said hoarsely. He looked at his dad, Chris and Allison, all of their faces showing the shock and horror that Stiles was feeling.

“She…didn’t tell you?” Derek said softly, his hand tightening minutely on Stiles’s shoulder. “Any of you?”

“I didn’t know,” Stiles said vehemently and the others echoed it quietly.

Chris looked the most devastated and after a moment, he walked unsteadily away from Kate to collapse onto one of the kitchen counter stools.

“You’re my sister, you’ve been like a mother to Allison since,” Chris’s jaw tightened. “How could you-” he looked broken, betrayed. “How could I not-”

“She’s…a very good actor,” Derek said quietly and his head was down when Stiles looked at him.

“Were your family okay? They didn’t-?” Stiles asked softly.

Derek’s expression tightened before he shrugged weakly. He looked past Stiles, clearly lost in a vision of the past none of them could see. “My uncle Peter was burnt so badly he almost died. He’s never been the same. We lost my aunt’s six-month-old baby to smoke inhalation, and my grandmother was killed. But no, the rest of the pack survived, thanks to my alpha. My mother. There were eight kids inside that house.”

Stiles fought down his sickness and felt nothing but loathing when he looked at Kate’s pretty face, seeing the coldness in her eyes for the first time.

Chris pressed a hand to his face and Allison went over to him, looking as shocked as her father as she put her hand on his shoulder.

“Get out,” Chris said softly and Stiles tensed with a jerk, thinking for a moment that Chris meant _him_, but no, when Chris dropped his hand and looked up, there was steely anger in his eyes, just like Stiles had seen in Allison when she was pissed.

Kate’s small smile slid slowly from her face. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You’re taking the side of a stupid boy and a vicious _mutt_ over your own blood?” Chris’s glare was unwavering and Kate’s lips parted in shock, before she flipped into anger. “What would Victoria think?” she said, cold and hard. Pain flashed over Chris’s face and Allison’s expression was outraged at the mention of her mother. “She killed herself to stay human. She knew where her loyalties lay, she-”

“Don’t speak of my wife,” Chris yelled, on his feet, “you filthy murderous cow. We don’t kill children, we don’t murder innocents, Kate. You’re no-”

Kate spoke over him, “-knew what her priorities were! And our father! He died, he gave his life fighting those-”

“We keep the code!” Chris roared.

“Fuck the code!” Kate snapped. “We’re hunters,” She jabbed a finger at Derek, “and they’re the enemy, they’re the animals. They’d murder us in a second if-”

“GET OUT!” Chris shouted.

“You coward! You traitor-!” Kate screamed, just as Stiles’s dad grabbed her arm. Kate whipped around to punch him in the face, her fist colliding with his cheekbone with a sick noise of skin against bone and Stiles saw red. He threw his hands out.

“Stiles-” Derek said quietly, a warning, but Stiles wasn’t listening. _Nobody_ got to hurt his father.

“**I, Mieczyslaw Stilinki**,” Stiles said, his voice loud and hard, “**revoke your right to my protection, to our home, to our wards. I banish you, Kate Argent, from our home and forbid you to return. _Get out_**.”

Kate screamed, but Stiles’s magic was too damn strong, heavy and crackling with his hatred so that the static made Stiles’s scalp prickle and the air reek of ozone. Kate was dragged towards the door as if by an invisible rope bound around her middle, the door flinging itself open with a _crack_. She was thrown outside, the door slamming shut after her.

The house was painfully silent after it was done. Stiles could feel the shift in the wards, feel the change in permissions now that Derek had been allowed entry and Kate had been barred. A moment later, Kate was hammering on the door, screaming in blind fury, but the sound was oddly muted and Stiles’s vision was going grey around the edges. He’d pushed his magic, great as his power was, too far tonight.

“I think- I-” he started, before his ears were buzzing and he passed out.

*

Stiles woke up to warm hands on his face and his dad’s worried voice, “Stiles? Hey, kid, you with me?”

Stiles blinked, staring blankly for a moment before his overworked brain tripped into gear and he realised that he was on the couch and Derek’s pale, strained face was looking down at him alongside Stiles’s dad, his eyebrows furrowed up with concern.

“Stiles, are you okay?” Stiles turned to his dad and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” he said. “Sorry. I just overdid it, I should have realised-” he broke off at the sight of the angry red mark on his dad’s cheek and his mouth twisted in anger and he reached up to touch his dad’s face lightly before he dropped his hand. “I just got so mad.”

His dad glanced, surprisingly, at Derek, and Stiles tried to sit up, realising that he was taking up the whole couch.

“Derek, sit down goddammit,” Stiles muttered, brushing off his dad’s worried hands trying to help him sit up. “Copying me is a really shitty idea, and if you pass out, no-one’s gonna be able to shift your heavy ass, trust me.”

Stiles got himself upright and patted the couch beside him, seeing a small smile twitching at the edge of Derek’s mouth. It was the first smile Stiles had seen on the wolf and Stiles grinned wearily to see it. He marvelled at how just that touch of humour, rather than pain or anger or devastation, changed Derek’s whole face, so that he looked younger and somehow shy.

After a moment, and a glance at Stiles’s dad, Derek sat slowly down, grimacing in pain as he did so. Stiles’s smile disappeared instantly and he moved a little too fast to look down Derek’s leg, but he could mostly just see blood through Derek’s torn up trouser leg.

“How bad is it? Are you okay?” Stiles’s brain kicked into problem-solving gear, already spinning. “I think willow bark would be a wolf-compatible pain-killer and I dried some last week, if-”

“Stiles, I’m fine,” Derek said firmly, putting a hand out to stop Stiles getting up, though he didn’t touch him. “I’m not catching _you_ if you fall over again.”

Stiles stilled, thinking Derek was probably right. He was feeling decidedly light-headed. “You caught me the first time?” he said blearily. Colour rose to Derek’s cheeks and he looked away and Stiles snorted quietly. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

“Forget it,” Derek grumbled.

“Sure,” Stiles said, smiling wider. “Wouldn’t want to damage your bad boy rep, Sourwolf.” Derek smiled then, reluctantly, but it was beautiful.

Stiles’s gaze flickered over to Chris, no longer sat on the kitchen stool but leaning against the counter with a whiskey in hand, looking like he’d aged five years. Allison looked just as grim and Stiles felt guilty for his attempts at humour, but the memory of Derek’s smile had been worth it.

“Is she…gone?” Stiles asked the room in general. His dad sighed and Chris took a swig of whiskey grimly.

“She’s gone,” Allison said finally. She still had her boots and coat on, her bow slung over her shoulder like she was ready to bolt, or defend herself, at a moment’s notice. Her jaw twitched. “The bitch,” she hissed almost inaudibly. Chris didn’t even react and Stiles’s dad barely glanced over.

Stiles stared at the floor, feeling the waves of their shock still reverberating through him too. Kate hadn’t been his family…but Stiles had lived with her since she’d arrived a little over a year ago, and he’d pretty much considered her his aunt, just as she’d been Allison’s. This kind of betrayal made Stiles doubt his judgement, made him feeling dirty as he remembered all the good times he’d had with her, considering what he knew now. It tainted everything and made him feel sick.

Derek put a hand on Stiles’s shoulder and Stiles leaned gratefully into the grounding contact. “I’m sorry,” Derek said lowly. “I know…she was important to you.” The words were said tensely but there was sincerity there and Stiles nodded.

“I just- the betrayal,” Stiles murmured, before stiffening. “Well, you’d know. I’m sorry, too, Derek. I should have realised.”

“I should have too,” Derek said gruffly. “But we didn’t. That’s on her, not us.” Stiles looked sideways at Derek and saw the wolf looking off absently, lost in the past. “But it took me a long time to realise that. My mom had to say it a lot of times.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said again, uselessly. God he was tired.

“You did right when it mattered,” Derek said gruffly. “That’s what counts.”

“Thanks,” Stiles murmured, dropping his forehead on Derek’s shoulder in weariness. Derek tensed a little momentarily, before he relaxed.

“Bedtime, kiddo,” Stiles’s dad said quietly a moment later.

“’m seventeen, dad,” Stiles said reflexively, half-asleep. He felt Derek twitch at his side.

“You’re _seventeen_?” Derek said incredulously and it was sharp enough that Stiles woke up a little, sitting up.

“Yeah?” Stiles said. Derek was staring at him and Stiles looked back with a frown.

“Jesus, I thought you were twenty or something. You don’t act like a kid.”

“Really?” Stiles said, surprised. “People say I’m childish all the time.”

“Stiles,” his dad protested gently.

“What? They _do_.”

But Derek was looking at him seriously. “No,” he said. “You made some pretty hard calls, and you did it fairly. You acted like an adult.”

“He’s not though,” Stiles’s dad said, a touch sharply, and Stiles cast his dad a curious look.

Derek cleared his throat and shifted away from Stiles on the couch, to Stiles’s bemusement.

“Yeah, I got that,” Derek said to Stiles’s dad. “’Night Stiles. And thanks.”

“Sure,” Stiles said as he got sluggishly to his feet. When he swayed slightly, it was his dad who caught his arm and Stiles leaned gratefully into his safe, familiar solidity. “See you around, Derek?”

Derek smiled slightly. “Only if your dad agrees,” he said.

Stiles snorted. “Uh huh,” he said, too exhausted to argue. He let his dad shepherd him upstairs and collapsed into bed, still thinking about the wolf downstairs with his sad eyes and slight smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do share your thoughts!!! ...if we forget the broken leg and ANGST, this could even be cute, right? I mean...there were cookies?? i tried?? :D


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